Tag Archives: Central Park

With the demands of work, home and children meaning that Mike and I are barely managing to lift our heads above the parapet for more than 5 minutes at a time right now, it’s hard to believe that 6 weeks ago we were relaxing and enjoying my #40thcelebrations in New York. One of the unquestionable highlights of our trip was the opportunity to attend what has to be one of Mike’s favourite sporting events, a NHL (National Hockey League) ice hockey game and even better could watch Mike’s home team, the Toronto Maple Leafs up against local heroes, the New York Islanders. This was undoubtedly more of a treat for Mike than for me, but I’m not ashamed to confess that I much prefer watching ice hockey live to on TV and this game was an absolute humdinger of a match to see.

What I love about ice hockey is the friendly rivalry between the opposing teams and that, no matter where you sit and what team you support, the love of the game is the most important thing. We sat in what were fantastic seats at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, Mike proudly wearing his Maple Leafs jersey and with a true mix of Toronto and New York fans surrounding us. There were good-hearted jibes, enthusiastic cheers and an atmosphere that reflected just how much every single person there was enjoying the skills they were seeing on the ice. In front of us sat 2 families, one supporting New York, the other Toronto and the kids gleefully switched seats and gave high-fives to all surrounding them whenever their team of choice scored. I had forgotten just how much fun an ice hockey game is and can’t wait until we have opportunity to take G and M to see their first NHL game, no matter who’s playing.

This was an outing that had been carefully planned in advance, but we also took advantage of a free night combined with a yearning to visit Madison Square Gardens, and managed to secure tickets to watch my very first NBA (National Basketball Association) game. To say I was somewhat underwhelmed by the antics of the New York Knicks vs. the Los Angeles Clippers is, well, an understatement, but I was completely dazzled by the stellar performance of their cheerleading squad both before and during the game. Basketball is a game that I really haven’t found an affinity for, much preferring the hard-fought matches of the netball of my youth. I’m glad we went to the game and would love to take the children along for the experience at some point in the future, but I don’t think I’m ever going to be converted to a hard and fast basketball fan. In fact, I was far more excited by the number of celebrities who were there watching the game too and loved waiting to see which film or TV show clip would be played to reveal the next well-known star on-site. I’d be hard-pressed to select my favourite star, but whilst Chris Rock and John McEnroe are both are up there with the best of them, it was Mr TeenWolf himself, Michael J Fox, who took the top spot in my heart.

Our night out at the Gardens was our last night in New York, but it was definitely not the end of our Big Apple adventures. We always knew that travelling to NYC in February meant that we might be subject to winter weather, but we never expected the extremes we experienced over the length of our stay. It had started with below freezing temperatures with glorious sunshine, passed through grey, wet and miserable and gave us a penultimate day of beautiful spring weather that saw us shedding the thermals and thick winter coats that had been our faithful companions throughout the holiday. And then, just as last week’s Winter Storm Stella buried the city in around 18cms of snow, her predecessor Winter Storm Niko arrived to give us a final day of bitter cold and the snow that Mike had been longing for the whole time we were there. We spent our last morning trudging through the snow in Central Park, capturing the landscape in photos to show the unbelievable difference that a mere 24 hours can make. Our flight was delayed by a couple of hours, but we spent some great time people-watching at JFK airport before boarding the flight and grabbing what sleep we could on our homeward journey. It was an absolutely amazing holiday and I can’t wait to visit again, perhaps with G and M in tow.

It will come as no great surprise to many of you when I say that February 2017 has been all about the #40thcelebrations in our household. Last year, I marked the occasion of 30 years living side by side with T1D, so this year it only seemed fitting that I celebrated with equal clamour that next big milestone in my life: hitting the big 4-0. I am a huge fan of celebrating birthdays in style and you will often find the birthday cards in our house hanging around for a good 2 or 3 weeks past the notable date itself. Unlike my husband, and possibly much to his disappointment, I don’t like…absolutely hate…’m not so keen on surprises and would much prefer being involved in the planning, to a greater or lesser extent, of any significant occasion. The plans for celebrating my 40th this year were no different.

When I turned 30, there were 2 destinations I wanted to visit, Las Vegas and New York. We discussed at length where we would go and settled on Las Vegas, with the clear understanding that only New York would do when it came to turning 40. The last 12 months or so have been filled with booking, researching and planning the finer details of our perfect trip to this iconic city and since just before Christmas, the excitement has gradually been building. Thanks to my Mum, we were able to spend an entire week in the USA and even managed to tag on a couple of extra days at the beginning to be part of the judging panels for this year’s Free From Food Awards. Her generosity meant we could take full advantage of travelling without children and fitted the trip in before we hit the price hikes of February half-term.

We decided to travel with Virgin Atlantic, from whom we have had great customer service in the past and again were not disappointed, especially when they marked my birthday with a couple of complimentary glasses of bubbles and bars of chocolate on the flights. We also chose to book our hotel and city passes as part of a Virgin holidays package and settled on the Hotel Beacon for our stay. Located on the Upper West Side of NYC and within 5 minutes walking distance of Central Park, the Hotel Beacon was a fantastic choice and we loved everything about it. As well as being able to walk to Central Park, we were also able to walk the couple of blocks to the 72nd subway station and were surrounded by a great selection of cafes and restaurants to try. What we particularly liked was the fact that the rooms have fully equipped kitchenettes, which may have only had a limited use for our stay this time, but would be perfect for when travelling with anyone with food allergies who might want to prepare safe food themselves.

Our trip was understandably dominated by our sightseeing plans and we did pretty much everything we wanted with a few added extras thrown in for good measure along the way. I’d be hard-pushed to narrow down my favourite part as everything we did was gloriously marvellous in their own unique ways. Mike loved seeing the architecture of the city, from the splendour of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building, to the stunning beauty of the interior of Grand Central Station and the sheer engineering magnitude of the Statue of Liberty. One of Mike’s favourite parts was, without doubt, our Sunday spent on Ellis Island, where he was able to track down the immigration paperwork for when his mother and her family moved from Jamaica to Canada by way of NYC in the late 1940s.I loved our wander through Central Park, both in the blazing sunshine and then again in the snow as we made our way to the Frick Collection, a fabulous small museum containing some leading Old Master paintings and sculptures. Around every corner we stumbled across yet another masterpiece and I am so grateful to my colleague who recommended this as an ideal way to spend a couple of hours seeing these well-known pieces of art. Thanks to our open bus city tour, we also discovered, to my absolute delight, where we could see the original Winnie-the-Pooh and friends given to Christopher Robin Milne before they became the inspiration for that much-loved children’s classic, a visit that took up hardly any of our time and yet was a worthwhile stop for this literature fan. In stark contrast, we spent a long afternoon at the 9/11 Memorial, a hauntingly heart-breaking and harrowing museum to visit, which did an amazing job in walking the visitor through both the timeline as it unfurled on the day and the stories of great heroism and unbelievable tragedy.

Our week-long stay was a truly fantastic way to celebrate my 40th year and there is so much more that I’ll be sharing over the next few blog posts.

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